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2ND DRAFT
two to one in divisions, about two to one in field guns and aircraft.
and overall about 20 per cent more soldiers, including some 30 per
cent to 40 per cent more in fighting units.
4.
These disparities do not take account of forces stationed in
the Soviet Union itself. In a time of tension and reinforcement, the
present imbalance of forces would increase. The 27 Soviet divisions
stationed in Poland, Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic
Republic would be rapidly reinforced by the substantial forces held
in the western USSR.
55.
In the Northern Region, for which we shall retain some specialist
reinforcement capability after the Defence Review, apart from the
ACE Mobile Force, the disparities are Head of DIS(CS) to provide 7
Nor can numerical comparisons alone give a wholly adequate
6.
picture. While NATO has more anti-tank weapons (though this
advantage is disappearing) and, in some cases, aircraft of better
quality, the Warsaw Pact has greater geographical advantages and has
substantially standardised its equipment. The basic numbers do not
reveal the great strides made by the Warsaw Pact in modernising and
re-equipping its forces, and reducing such advantages in quality
that NATO possesses. Over the last five years, the Soviet Union has
improved and increased its armies to a much greater extent than in
any previous five-year period in peacetime, and these improvements
have also been reflected in some cases in the forces of other Warsaw
Pact countries. Soviet tank divisions in East Germany have increased
in strength by some ten per cent, and in motor rifle divisions by
some twenty per cent.
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